Mariners honor past, but continue present funk in 5-1 loss to Texas

Ichiro and the Seattle Mariners have scored three runs in their last four games. (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

Well, at least they scored this time.

But the one run the Seattle Mariners scraped across against the Texas Rangers on Saturday wasn’t enough – shocker, right? – to support Felix Hernandez, and the Rangers won 5-1 to hand the home team its eighth consecutive loss.

In case you’re still monitoring such things, the Rangers now lead third-place Seattle by 10.5 games in the American League West. Each of the Mariners’ losses during this eight-game streak has also cost them a game in the standings, as Texas has won 10 straight.

This defeat was accompanied by historical embarrassment, too. By the time the Mariners gasped and wheezed their way to their only run – an RBI single by Ichiro with two outs in the fifth that scored Franklin Gutierrez from second base – they had gone the previous 30 innings without one, setting a new franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings.

The previous high was 29, achieved in 2004.

“There’s a lot to be said for what’s not happening,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said, speaking about his offense. “We’re fighting behind the scenes to try to get these guys heading in the right direction. I’ve got some strong thoughts in regard to what I think’s going on here, and we’re going to keep working hard to get it across to them.”

And so long as we’re talking about history, it should be noted that the Mariners re-wrote the record books on the same night they honored the 10-year anniversary of their 2001 team, which tied a Major League record with 116 wins.

Members of that team in attendance on Saturday witnessed closely just how much things have changed around here. The record-setting ’01 club was shut out four times. Total.

The 2011 team has been shut out four times in July.

As for Wedge’s strong thoughts?

“That’s for me and the guys right now,” he said. “The biggest thing is we’ve got to be tougher. Our position players need to be tougher. You’ve got to be tough, to have conviction with your ABs, to be prepared to turn around a fastball, to not be in between, and take full accountability for it. It’s nobody else’s fault. Each hitter to a man has to take full responsibility for what the hell they’re doing and what they’re not doing.

“Like I said before, until you’re able to look in the mirror and be 100 percent honest with yourself about what you’re not doing and why, it’s not going to get better.”

Give the Mariners credit, though, for avoiding another goose-egg on Saturday. Had Rangers starter C.J. Wilson not yielded that run-scoring hit to Ichiro, the Mariners may very well have suffered their third consecutive shutout, a feat not accomplished by this team in its at-times sorry history.

So, they’ve got that going for them. Which is nice. Wilson went seven innings and allowed five hits. Dustin Ackley hit a leadoff double in the sixth, but was stranded after Miguel Olivo struck out, Justin Smoak walked and Adam Kennedy hit into a 6-3 double-play.

Seattle (43-51) moved just two other runners to scoring position, besides Gutierrez.

Even Hernandez seems helpless to help the Mariners now. He pitched below his Cy Young standard, allowing four runs in 7 2/3 innings. Most others would consider that a serviceable line. For the Mariners, it’s not good enough. Not even close.

The warm fuzzies generated by the pre-game ceremony honoring the ’01 team dissipated quickly. Ian Kinsler made sure of it. The Rangers designated hitter ripped a homer over the left-field fence to lead off the game, instantly giving Texas an enormous 1-0 lead.

It was the first leadoff home run Hernandez had allowed in 193 career starts. For good measure, Kinsler added another in the eighth inning, which was when the rest of the wheels began falling off the Mariners already decrepit proverbial wagon.

“The first homer was a pretty good pitch, it was inside,” Hernandez said during a brief postgame conversation. “The other one was right in the middle of the plate.”

It preceded the Mariners’ ultimate collapse, too. Already leading 3-1 with Hernandez running out of gas, the Rangers kept adding on in the eighth. Elvis Andrus followed Kinsler’s homer with a base hit, moved to second on a balk call that led to Wedge’s ejection, took third on a wild pitch, then scored when Josh Hamilton hit a tapper back to Hernandez. The Mariners pitcher looked to third momentarily, then tossed softly to first as Andrus bolted for home and scored ahead of Justin Smoak’s throw.

Hernandez out. Jamey Wright in. Adrian Beltre greeted him with a bullet up the middle, then scored when Michael Young ripped a double into the right-field corner.

Texas in Saturday’s eighth inning: three runs. Seattle in this series: one.

The balk, Hernandez said, was called because of a motion he made with his foot that second base umpire Fieldin Culbreth deemed illegal. Had it not been called, there’s a good chance Andrus wouldn’t have wound up scoring and the inning may have ended without further damage.

“I was doing that all night, and you’re going to call it in the eighth inning? I don’t know about that,” Hernandez said, clearly annoyed.

Wedge came out of the dugout in search of an explanation. He was instead ejected, his fourth this season and second in the past week.

“I was just looking for an explanation and he said I couldn’t even come out,” Wedge said of Culbreth. “There’s another crew that we were with before that said you could come out and get an explanation as long as you don’t argue. I was told tonight as soon as I came out that they had no choice, that they were going to toss me. So they need to get on the same page.”

If only it were that simple for his baseball team. Seattle’s clubhouse atmosphere was funereal on Saturday. The few players who sat in front of their lockers did so with somber expressions. They dressed slowly. Few spoke, even to each other.

This is not a team that doesn’t care. The losing – and lack of offense – is taking its toll, a difficult fate to accept for a team that fancied itself a playoff contender a mere two weeks ago.

Now, they’d settle for a win or two.

“We’re not going to ever give into the fight,” Wedge said, though it could have been an echo. “I’ve said before and I’ll keep saying, we’re going to come out of this. We’re going through a tough stretch right now, but we’re going to get to the point where we can count on our guys’ offense to do their part.

“It sure as hell doesn’t look like it right now, but we’re going to get there. We’ve got a lot of young kids here that are learning on the job. We’ve got some veterans that need to be doing a better job, and that’s what we’re going to keep pushing.

“We’re going to find out what we’re made of here. You can’t give into it, you can’t feel sorry for yourself. You’ve got to believe that you’re going to come out of it. You’ve got to believe that there’s success ahead, and that’s the way you’ve got to come to the ball park thinking each and every day.”

Until signs of offensive life are evident, the latter may be easier said than done.